2023-09-21 03:32:00
Bin Salman warned the Iranian government
The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman, warned that his country will acquire a nuclear weapon if its rival Iran does so first and affirmed that a normalization of relations with Israel “is closer,” in an interview broadcast this Wednesday. .
““If they get one, we have to get it,” said the heir to the Saudi throne.who actually exercises it, since his father, King Salmán, is ill.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapon but violated agreed limits on uranium enrichment since US President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 international agreement in 2018 to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions.
Saudi Arabia seeks security guarantees from the United States in exchange for normalizing relations with Israel.
Israel is the only state with nuclear weapons in the region, although undeclared.
Bin Salman also denied that the Saudis have suspended US-brokered talks with Israel.
“We are getting closer every day,” the prince, whom many consider effectively the leader of the Gulf nation, told Fox News.
The Saudi leader also stated that his country was seeking more progress to guarantee the rights of Palestinians, as the Israeli government presses ahead with controversial settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“For us, the Palestinian issue is very important, we need to resolve that part”he declared in the interview.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, spoke this Wednesday about Saudi Arabia during a meeting with the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
At the meeting, the Israeli president asked Biden to lead a “historic peace agreement” between Israel and Saudi Arabia
The United States and Saudi Arabia seek to bring closer positions. Photo: AFP
The Biden administration’s diplomatic plans in the Middle East were shaken by tense relations with Netanyahu, whom his opponents accuse of undermining Israeli democracy through major reforms of the judiciary, which would undermine the division of powers.
The U.S. government maintains historically close ties with the Saudi leadership, but that relationship has also been affected by controversy over the crown prince’s role, according to U.S. intelligence, in the murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, seen by last time at the Saudi embassy in Turkey.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this Wednesday in an interview with the ABC News channel that normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel would be a “transformative event.”
“Bringing these two countries together in particular would have a powerful effect on stabilizing the region, on integrating the region, on bringing people together, on not having them at odds,” he said.
But he acknowledged it was “difficult to get there.”
Israel has normalized relations with five Arab nations, but recognition by Saudi Arabia is seen as a historic prize in Middle East diplomacy.due to the kingdom’s role as guardian of the two holiest sites in Islam.
Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as other Arab states, share a mutual hostility toward Iran, a Shiite clerical state and frequent rival of the Saudis, who belong to the Sunni branch of Islam.
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